


Guillotine

by 15m2andadoor



Series: Prism [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bed-Wetting, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Deaf Character, Dissociation, Domestic Violence, Eating Disorders, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flashbacks, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Poor Prompto Argentum, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 09:59:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15216692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/15m2andadoor/pseuds/15m2andadoor
Summary: There was no right answer.(Another one where Prompto had a terrible childhood, generally gets the shitty end of the stick, and tries to cope with mixed success.)





	1. Lunette

Prompto did not want to look like he was trying to get a reaction. The doors were locked, there was nowhere to hide that wouldn’t look overly dramatic, so all he was left with was to stand motionless in the kitchen, and wait until she was done screaming. There was no right answer to anything she threw at him. He had tried it all, from crying to begging to reasoning to talking back.

Not reacting at all would not speed this up, either, on the contrary. No, he did not think he was better than her, standing there all silent, but his jaw had locked up, his knees had locked up. Yes, he was grateful for the roof over his head. Yes, he was grateful for her patience.

He wasn’t sure if she would misunderstand if he took a deep breath, because he had been holding it too long, biting the inside of his cheeks too hard. In the end, he had to, and of course to her it looked like an annoyed sigh. She grabbed the object closest to her, a pepper mill, and hurled it at the wall behind him. It ricocheted and hit his left ear and temple, and he really tried not to react, tried not to give her more to be mad about, but it _hurt._ Enough to make him dizzy, to break the paralysis. He sunk to his knees, held his ear, and sobbed.

She pulled him up by the wrist, because _please_ , it barely grazed him, and had she ever hit him? Had she now?

Of course she hadn’t. She wasn’t _that_ kind of mother.

***

Somebody knocks on the door when he is brushing his teeth, and Prompto’s reflex reaction is to protect his face. He is glad that nobody is there to see it. There is no right answer to any of the questions they would ask.

***

He had locked himself in the bathroom, because whoever cried first lost. In here, he could choke the sound in a towel, cool down his face before it had a chance to turn red. It was not going to work, he would not have needed to bother, because the second he turned the key, he was already guilty of garnering attention.

There was nothing he wanted less. He just wanted to be left alone, but the front door was locked again, and she had the key to his room. His options were limited. For a moment, he considered the window, but it was too high up, and he was too fat to fit. Too late, anyway.

It was the third door that year. It was his fault.

***

It isn’t Gladio’s fault that he is tall and heavy. When he takes long steps across the motel room, it sends small shock waves through the floor, and when the rhythm of them hits a certain cadence, Prompto goes rigid. He forces himself to close his eyes, and pretends to be asleep.

_Don’t move. Don’t even breathe. And for Astral’s sake, don’t cry._

From behind his eyelids, he can still make out light and dark, can still gauge how close the shadows are, he can still hear well enough to tally their positions in the room. When the light is blocked out completely for a short moment, Prompto knows it’s just Ignis by the bedside. _Don’t even breathe_ still turns into even breaths, slow, _you are asleep, don’t mess it up_. If he becomes part of the backdrop, melts into the furniture, nobody will take note of him. Nothing will happen.

***

She had brought this one home before a few times now, and Prompto briefly wondered if that meant that he would move in with them. He recognized the footfall, the laughter, and the smell, stale alcohol and sweat by his bedside, reassuring him that he would be good to his mom, promise.

It was just a hand on his shoulder. There was no reason to be scared. Nothing had ever happened with this one before, and nothing would happen tonight.

Prompto measured his breath, and pretended to be asleep. It had never helped with the one before, had usually gone like this –

When it was over, he waited and listened for the steps. Two, three, four for his bedroom door to open, close. Six, seven, eight for them to get quieter, their bedroom door to open, close. When he was perfectly still, he could still make out rustling fabric, so he remained where he was, his hands and forehead buried into the small rug in front of his bed. Waited, listened, until getting up was safe.

All he could hear now was his own heartbeat, still pounding, and his shaky breaths brushing against the deep pile under his nose. _It’s alright._

Quickly and quietly, minding noisy handles and creaky hinges, he could slip through the hallway into the bathroom. No lights, and careful with the stool, no letting it scrape against the tiles, no noise, careful when he stepped on, got the cup with the toothbrush, even if he could not brush his teeth. If he got it damp it would give him away, just like a damp towel. _It’s alright._

He still had his pajama top, and the cup itself would do. The pipes rattled if he turned the water up too much, so he filled it slowly, brought his face close to the sink to wash it, and to gingerly rinse and spit. The taste never really went away, but this was a bit better. No blood, at least. _You’re alright._

It was okay to go back to bed and sleep now. He never came twice in one night. As long as everything was back in its place in the morning, everything was alright. _It’s_ _alright._

***

“You alright?”

Prompto freezes when he hears Noct’s voice in the dark of their tent. Too much rustling going through his clothes, probably, and now he is awake and worried.

“Yeah,” he says. “Just needed the time and couldn’t find my phone.”

That seems to be what Noct needs to hear, and he just hums and turns around again. It is mostly true, too. He keeps the phone in his vest, and checking if it’s still there is part of the routine he goes through when the fear of weighing down the group becomes too much.

Prompto’s vest has two inside pockets. The first, buttoned, holds his wallet. Money, receipts, cut out coupons. The second, so meticulously sewn shut that you have to know it is there to find it, holds an envelope. Luna’s letter, his passport, his savings.

It’s just a precaution, he has no intention to leave, not really. As long as Noctis needs him, he will be there. Nothing is going to change that, but the most important thing is to keep Noct safe. At some point, Prompto knows, that might just mean cutting out the weakest link, and if they won’t do it, he will.

***

The house was empty.

When it was still empty the next morning, Prompto started looking for the inevitable note. He found it on the kitchen table, scrawled out on a used envelope. It didn’t say where she was, but he knew. Three weeks, this time. Possibly six, depending.

The money in the envelope was nowhere near enough. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough if she had been here, either. Prompto knew very well where she was. He could have asked her, but he never did. Instead, he had learned to provide for her absence in advance.

He started digging up the cash he had squirreled away under loose carpet corners, in the gap between two shelves, under his mattress. Most of it was pocket money he had not spent, the rest a mix of coins, forgotten in vending machines or picked off the ground, and the occasional bill swiped from her wallet. It wasn’t stealing if he used it to pay for their electricity.

It wasn’t always like this. That would have been too easy. 

When she came back home after three, six, twelve weeks, she was calmer and happier and kinder. She apologized, hugged, made promises. Less yelling. No more strangers in their home. She tended to keep those promises for a while, but how long it lasted depends on the circumstances. Sometimes she would be back at it the very same day. Sometimes she was a _mother_ long enough for him to let his guard down.

He never understood what would and what would not push her back into her old habits.

He was twelve, and she had been gone for three weeks. She dumped her boyfriend, took Prompto to the zoo, asked him about his homework, wanted to know if he made friends. For a few months, she knocked before she entered his room and kissed him good night. He knew it was over when, for the third day in a row, she had not gotten out of bed yet when he came back home from school. When she tore into him for not doing the dishes a few hours later, he started bawling right away, and hated himself for it.

He was sixteen, and she had left him sitting for eight weeks without a note. He had forgotten to clean the bathroom sink. When she pulled his arm, dragged him to the scene of the crime, he just let himself go limp. It _did_ occur to him that he was taller than her now, and stronger by far. It didn’t help him.

He was fourteen, and he decided to fight back. He only raised his hand, not even that far, not even that close to her, and she fell silent. Let herself go limp. Started crying. Prompto understood something in that moment, so crystal clear and sharp it made him shiver. He got down on his knees to hold her, and never did it again.

***

_The house is cold. It’s winter, and the power is out again._

_Prompto needs to get out of his room, but there is a snake blocking the door. It wears his mother’s face. “My baby…”_

_He tries to move past it, but his feet are so heavy, and he is so slow. The snake takes its time. It coils around him, tighter and tighter. “My baby… Where…”_

_There is no way he can answer, whatever he says will be wrong, and so he just holds still until there is no air left in his lungs, until his heart is about too explode, until--_

He wakes up, and balls his fists so hard his fingernails dig into his palms. He wants to cry, but he has to move quietly. Maybe if he is quick, nobody will notice. It wouldn’t be the first time that he is up before the others, and if he hangs a shirt over the line next to the pants and the sleeping bag, nobody will ask. They all wash their clothes at camp now and then. This isn’t any different.

Two hours later, Prompto all but jumps at Ignis saying, “Good morning. You’re up early.”

Prompto is sure that he knows what has happened the moment he sees the laundry line. He wants to say, “Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” or just “Morning,” but his throat has gone too dry. He just nods.

Ignis looks at him a little longer than comfortable before asking, “Coffee?”

Ignis is a hard one to read, and for all it is worth, reading people is the one thing he is invariably good at. He picks up quickly on their tells, has learned Noct’s and Gladio’s by heart a long time ago, still makes maps of a minefield he no longer lives it, and carefully delays and defuses, dances around triggers. With Ignis, he is still learning, even after all these years, and he cannot seem to find the things that truly set him off. All he ever seems to get are dry jokes, or that look, long and searching. He still doesn’t know what to make of it.

He shakes his head, sure his ears are burning bright red, and Ignis is going to say something any moment now. He does, but it isn’t what Prompto expects. “Are you feeling quite alright?”

He inhales –

_No, I’m not. No, I can’t get over that cave or that naga or the things it shook up. No, I’m ashamed, because I’m twenty, not two, and this shouldn’t happen. No, I’m terrified._

– and exhales to say, “Yeah. Sorry, still sleepy. Coffee sounds great.”

***

They were shouting at each other again. It was hard to stick to his homework over the clamor, or to keep his neck and stomach from tightening up at all the things that could happen next. Shouting was only the beginning, usually, but he had to finish this assignment, because if he did not, it would be the third time this term, which meant a call or a note, and nothing good ever came of those. He swallowed against the bile, gnawing on his wristband. _Calm down._ Moving from the wristband to the skin underneath. _Calm down._ Glass shattered, and something more solid hit the wall next to his door. Prompto bit down hard. It made him seize up even more, but when he let go and the pain let up, so did the tightness in his body. Enough to bring his attention back from the living room to himself and his desk and his homework. Under the new red marks, his wrist was still purple and yellow from their last fight. It did not matter. The band never came off, anyway.

The metallic clattering of the key, the click and snap of the lock told him all he needed to know. From here on out, he had about a minute to decide for or against drowning it all out with music, and so much more time to regret either decision. There was no right way to do this, but there was pain he could still avoid. He plugged his ears, dialed up the volume, and kept writing.

When the key turned again a few hours later, she tried to smile, and Prompto tried not to count her stitches.

***

One day, somewhere between that first coffee and his morning run, it hits him that his mother is dead. No specific emotion comes with that thought, no deeper revelation, try as he might. Its absence leaves a hole that demands to be closed. He makes do, fills it with his regrets, and covers it with his guilt over not being able grief.


	2. Mouton

Early on, Gladio suggests that they go on their morning run together, maybe even drag Noct along. Prompto says nothing to dismiss him. He just keeps his own pace, not slowing in the slightest, and it breaks Gladio of the idea within less than a week. He needs that time for himself. The situation they live in is stressful for everyone, but for Prompto, it is just too much.

They spend 24 hours a day with each other, seven days a week, and most of that time they spend in enclosed spaces: the car, the tent in the limited area of the Havens, motels, trailers. They sleep in the same space, they dress and undress in the same space, and there is fuck all Gladio and Ignis can do about throwing their shadows, and fuck all Prompto can do to not think about it, and to not let these thoughts wander to less friendly pastures. His morning run is what keeps him sane.

Was what had kept him sane.

The ground shakes, Noct’s headaches are getting worse, and the mood in the tent is thick with worry and presentiment. Prompto’s runs become longer, trying to get out of that oppressing atmosphere. It doesn’t help, he brews his own thunderstorm out of guilt and self-loathing for literally running away from the oath he had sworn, from the people who are patient enough to endure him.

He runs faster, even though he knows better, until his lungs burn and his head swims. He needs to stop thinking, just for a moment, and these days that only happens when he is face down in the dirt, when his hands and elbows are still raw from the impact, in that moment after his legs have given up the fight.

***

Running in the mornings was the best decision he had ever made. It meant that he got to leave the house before she woke up. He changed at school, and after school went out to take pictures, so they barely met. That, and he could work on his social skills. Those would come in handy.

Switching up his diet did not work quite as well. They barely ever cooked at home, and their fridge always held the same stock of fatty convenience food. Anything less dense came out of his pocket money, and that was limited. And then there were all the times he could only escape shouting matches or uncomfortable conversations by taking off for the kitchen. Get something to drink. Get a snack. Food was getting away from all that. Food was comfort.

Food was starting to frustrate him. He was getting bigger instead of smaller, and he knew why. It had been an awful month. She did not have partner right now, and her attempts to find someone else had left Prompto’s nerves frayed, and his resolve to eat healthier broken. He had found himself face first in the fridge twice before that week, and this was the third time, still chewing while he thought about how much he regretted this. It had already been way too much, felt like a month of progress down the toilet.

Turned out that this was where it belonged.

***

The Chancellor joins their party, and Prompto’s world tilts sideways. There are very few things that he missed less in his life than someone always sitting a little too close, casually violating his personal space, making use of small weaknesses. The man just loves closing in on him in his blind spot, always gauges it right, and Prompto’s nerves are already frayed when he first tries to actually touch.

Titan is a disaster. Noct is beyond tired, Gladio is angry at everything. The Regalia is gone. Ignis has been talking to him for the last two minutes, and Prompto nods along trying his best to guess what he is talking about. His thoughts keep slipping away from him, circling down the drain. The few moments he is close enough to the surface to _listen_ , he cannot _hear_. The world's most persistent tea kettle has found its new home in his left ear.

It is his own fault, really. His own carelessness is gradually costing him his hearing, the Astral's roar only tipped the scales, but what is he supposed to do? There is no time to plug his ears every time he summons his guns. It had to happen eventually, just like the hand on his thigh had to happen eventually.

Prompto holds still.

***

The next one did not seem to be half bad. He did not drink, not much at least, and did not beat either of them. His mother was calmer around him, set the breakfast table for all of them, and for half an hour every morning, they could have a normal conversation. He was interested in photography, and seemed to like what Prompto did. Sometimes in the afternoon, they sat down, went through his pictures, and talked about them.

It all went well until there was a note on the kitchen table again. No money beneath it. After all, Prompto was not alone.

Without her around, he was different. Not like the other two guys, nothing so clear-cut. At first he just sat a little too close, touched a little too much and too long. It was not that he _did_ anything, he just made Prompto very aware that he was not ten and chubby anymore. It was nothing, really. He had been through worse.

There was new pair of jeans on his bed, a little tight – a gift, he said, because they were getting along so well. Prompto still had no way of locking his bedroom door. The bathroom key was gone.

It was almost predictable, the way he handed Prompto a towel when he came out of the shower, stayed to watch him dry off. Just as predictable as the way he said, “You missed a spot,” and reached for the towel to take matters into his own hands.

Prompto thought about backing away, and decided to hold still. Right now, all of this was confusing more than anything else – what was in it for him, why were his pants still up, what was the idea here – and if he could keep it down to confusing… Prompto held still. It was safer.

He told him to keep it a secret, and Prompto knew the drill so nauseatingly well he almost rolled his eyes. He had been through worse. This was nothing, really. Not enough to mention.

***

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

It’s not the first time that Noct hands him a potion when he returns, and it’s not the first time Prompto only notices that he is still bleeding when he does. He pulls a splinter from the ball of his thumb, and tries to connect to the red that wells up. “Yeah,” he says, “I know.”

Noct is offering a lifeline, day after day, that he cannot grab. Every time he stretches his hands out, he can hear her, _look at you, pushing yourself into the spotlight again_ , and he flinches and pulls back. “Just… roots and all that. No worries.”

“Roots.” Noct waits for a moment, leaves the line out a little longer. Prompto doesn’t bite. He sighs. “Sure.”

Prompto knows he keeps pushing him away, and he understands that this is all Noct can possibly do, but every time he actually lets it go, a part of him wants to scream. There is no way to win this. How on Eos is he supposed to explain that the thing he needs to talk about is the very same thing that keeps him from talking?

The second time Ardyn tries to touch him, they are alone. What happens is barely enough to count, and not enough to mention.

***

The arcade had good hours, it was easy to draw Noct’s eyes away from the clock, to coax him into staying just a little longer. One more game, come on.

Noct obviously noticed, but he didn’t seem to mind. He never asked why Prompto did it, so Prompto never told that there was a somewhat narrow time window for coming home safely, and he needed to drag things out until he hit it. Waiting it out alone was both boring and depressing, and he had seen how volatile that mix could get.

The first time they overshot, he almost broke a finger. It got caught when he turned the doorknob, and she pulled the door open so quickly it made him stumble. He didn’t get to take his jacket off, just stood there, let her yell, waited until the storm had passed. Handed over his keys when she stretched out her hand. It was a pretty simple message: Come back on time, or don’t come back at all.

The second time they overshot, he spent the night on the playground, hiding in one of the child-sized shacks. He could have tried getting back in, and it would probably have work, but he was so tired. Pushing off the fallout until the next day felt more important than a comfortable place to sleep.

It got easier once Noct had his own place. Prompto could crash on his couch when it got late and he missed his last bus, more and more frequently. He gave up on making it look like an accident when his ‘forgotten’ shirts had their own drawer, and the toothbrush had permanently moved from his backpack to the sink. Noct didn’t ask and didn’t mind.

***

Noct is not even an arm’s length away, but he might as well be on another planet. Prompto would feel so much safer if he could only reach out and hold on. He is too heavy, paralyzed. Too much old poison in new wounds.

 _You know you can talk to me, right?_ He knows, but he has heard it before.

_You can talk to to me. No, not about this. Ask if you need anything. No, not for that. Who gave you the idea you could ask for that? Other people have their own lives, you know. They don’t have time to deal with yours._

They held his feelings hostage for so long, cut their tongue out, glued his tear ducts shut. Now he is a prisoner of his own mind. His cell is deceptively easy to leave, the door is not locked. All it takes is a little push: _I’m not okay. I need to talk._

Tonight, every breath is his hands wrapped around the bars, is his fingernails scraping off the rust, is so much effort that he wonders after each one if he can ever draw another. Every word he cannot say weighs on his chest. Every inhale a potential: _Look at me. Listen to me. Hold me. Stay with me._ Every voiceless exhale: _Nobody wants to hear this._

_Be quiet. Be weightless._

He would feel so much lighter if he could just say, “I want to die.” Maybe it wouldn’t hold as true anymore if someone heard the words, helped him carry them, if only for an hour.

Gods, they have become so heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title changed on on 2018/7/19.  
> First three chapters heavily restructured on 2018/7/19 and drawn together into two. Contents as such haven't changed, though.


	3. Déclic

Something was wrong with him, and the tattoo on his wrist was visibly prove of it. One of his earliest memories was his mother driving home that it was never, under any circumstances, to be seen. Tearing off anything she had wrapped around to cover it was the worst possible misstep.

“If you let anyone see this, you are dead. Do you understand me?”

Prompto was four years old, and he didn’t, but this was the wrist she slapped when he touched something he shouldn’t, and this was the wrist she took when she shook him.

“I said _do you understand me?!_ ”

He nodded.

***

He misses his cue - had to, eventually - and a moment later, there is a hi-elixir sized hole in Noct’s stomach. The speech that Gladio gives him while Ignis patches the prince up is well deserved. It doesn’t change that Prompto only hears every other word, somewhere between the shock of seeing his best friend nearly bleeding out and the fact that Gladio is yelling at him from the wrong side.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” is one of the few sentences he gets in their entirety, and, “Are you even listening to me?”

He nods, he gets the drift, even though he could not repeat anything the other has said word for word if his life depended on it. Gladio only frowns, and when the magic has done its part, he turns to help Noctis back to his feet.

***

Skipping breakfast had turned into skipping dinner had turned into eating as little as he could without looking like he was doing it on purpose. He could not stop. Could not talk about it either.

He knew that he was sick, and that it showed, but wasn’t that half the point? His body was a message. It was the only one nobody could intercept.

What the other half was, he wasn’t so sure about, at first. It came to him later, sprawled out on the gym floor, with his chest on fire and his vision tunneling in. Later, curled up in a hospital bed, between tubes and wires. Later, when he could not stop thinking about how it would have been if it had happened in the park, instead, too early in the morning for anyone to see him fall.

***

They make camp, and Prompto’s mind is adrift while his body is going through the motions. It’s with his mother, and with her last boyfriend, asking himself if maybe they were right. It’s with Noct, back in Galdin Quay, the moment his world shattered, with Noct, last night, the moment the daemon ran him through. It’s with Ardyn, and it keeps returning and returning to his words, whispered into Prompto’s working ear weeks before, to his hand touching the bands around his right wrist so very, very lightly. _I know perfectly well what is wrong with you, dear Prompto. If you’re good, I might even tell you._ It keeps returning to, _Good boy,_ and the silence after.

***

If he was a goner the moment anyone saw the black ink on his wrist, then any attempt to cross it out was a step in the right direction. If nobody wanted to see it, it didn’t matter if he filled the space between the bars with his own lines.

_“If you let anyone see this, you are dead.”_

Fair enough.

***

Someone is behind him, touching him, and Prompto stops moving. Half a dozen rapid heartbeats later, his brain catches up  - it’s Ignis, tapping his shoulder to get his attention. Gladio and Noct have left. When and why, he doesn’t know.

“Coffee?”

Ignis only ever asks him that when they are alone. With all of them present, it’s just a pot by the fire or on the stove, never a direct offer. If there is a message in that, he doesn’t understand it.

***

Someone is behind him, _not_ touching him, and Prompto only picks up on it when he hears fingers snapping to his right. He flinches and turns to find Gladio, crossing his arms and shaking his head in disbelief. “When exactly were you planning on telling us?”

***

_“You should have said something.”_

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, I’m sorry.”_

_“What were you thinking?”_

***

In the quagmire of the Vesperpool, Prompto goes down on his knees and prays that this time, there will be an answer, that he can be _good_ enough for an answer.

When he gets it, rough hand in his hair and hot breath against his neck, it is so simple that it almost makes him laugh.


	4. Rainure

They talk with the lights out, in that thoughtful space between going to bed and falling asleep. It hurts to hear the others voice their worries, because that means he let things slip, has become inconvenient somehow despite his best efforts.

“My other ear’s still good. I think.”

“You think,” Gladio echoes. “Right. Just… tell us stuff like that. You’ve seen what happens if you don’t. And last time I checked going deaf was kind of a big deal.”

“Nah, it’s okay,”  Prompto says, because it is, in a way. This is new, and immediate, and small in comparison. There are words for this, it’s not so convoluted with who he is as a person that they fail him. He can talk about this. “I just figured I deal with my stuff on my own, so you don’t have to worry about it. I’m here to help, y’know?”

“ _I_ worry about it,” Noct says. “It’s like that thing back in school, with you collapsing in the gym. I don’t want that to happen again.” It’s the most he has ever said to address the issue. It’s more than anyone has ever said about it, and it effectively shuts the others up, leaving the meager rest of the conversation between the two of them.

“It’s not like that, and it's not happening again,” Prompto says, because this, he is sure, is different, because most of it is not purposeful, and what is purposeful is just temporary. Until they are in Accordo. Until the wedding. Until everything has settled. “I promise.” 

There is no reply. Just Noct inhaling as if to speak, exhaling with a sigh, once, twice, then giving up.

***

She only showed up once, to ask him why, and left when he did not have an answer. Of all the people, she should have known. Prompto had taken care to keep Noctis out of this, but even at its worst, he had not even attempted to disguise from _her_ what he was doing. She had seen his constant absence from the table, had seen the raided fridge, must have heard him retching in the bathroom. This right here was where that road led. A little late to cry about it now.

Noct was there after school, almost every day, despite neither of them finding it in themselves to talk the first two times. Despite Prompto joking and pretending that this was alright from the third time onwards.

Ignis picked him up from the hospital. Ignis drove him to that self-help group where he dispensed empathy and advice and gallows humor like a vending machine, but never said a word about himself. Ignis included him in his routine around Noctis so naturally he rarely had the chance to feel guilty about it. As far as Prompto could remember, there was nothing he had done to deserve that amount of care. He didn’t understand.

***

Their time at Cape Caem feels final, somehow, the softness of something that is so much like having a home only covering up the jagged edges of what they all feel is coming for them. It’s not only _his_ anxiety now, not only _his_ fear of going to sleep. They cling to their last days of summer. They hold on to each other at night.

Prompto cannot even hate himself for loving it so much, and there is a strange sense of calm in knowing _why_ he doesn’t deserve any of this. It lasts through the boat ride, and through the last warm days of their youth.

***

“You know what happened last year, right?” They were walking side by side, and Prompto just blurted it out only seconds after Cor had told him that yes, he had passed the test, yes, he could train to accompany Noct as a member of the Crownsguard. He had to make sure that this wasn’t a mistake, that the Marshal knew who he was sending along.

“I know you were sick,” he replied.

“That’s not--” Prompto started, but Cor didn’t let him finish.

“I know you were _very_ sick,” he said, “and it took a lot of hard work for you to get back on your feet.”

Prompto didn’t say anything.

“It takes a lot. I can respect that. I’m not changing my mind.”

***

There is a body floating in the channel.

The city falls away, and all he hears is the quiet drip, drip, drip of their leaky tap. Each drop hitting the pink surface of the water produces a ripple that meets the dusty edges of the bathtub on one side, and breaks against a still wrist on the other. Nothing else moves.

“Prompto.”

Maybe the light is wrong, or maybe this is just a really strange dream. The ripples in the water are the only things that move. Prompto cannot think any further than that, cannot feel his face, does not know anymore which way the door he came through is. He feels sick, does and does not understand what he is looking at, that what he sees is and is no longer his father. His mother is not home yet.

“Prompto!”

Getting hold of the handle is almost too much, it is too far up, and the door just will not open on his first attempt, will not close behind him when he is outside. He slams it, is not supposed to slam doors, but he needs to _close_ it. He has to close it, and only now understands that nobody is there to hear it.

Nobody is there to hear it.

“Prompto! Damn it, get up!”

Around them, Altissia falls apart, and Prompto only finds himself back on his feet and stumbling along when they have long left the waterside behind. Gladio seems to notice the difference, or at least he stops pushing him forward and lets go of his arms. “What the hell was that all about?”

There is no right answer, and they don’t have the time for Prompto to find one. Noct needs them. They keep moving.

When they are back at the hotel, an eternity later, and everything feels a little less like a fever dream, Prompto makes inventory.

His passport is destroyed, dissolved into a soggy mess along with money that is worth nothing in this country. Luna’s letter is so soaked he doesn’t even try to unfold it, the ink has run all over the paper, no longer forming words.

All he has ever seen of her is an unmoving shock of white and blonde, only steps away from the center of his crumbling world. Noct, almost as still as her. Ignis, burnt and barely holding on. Gladio, vibrating with powerless rage.

Prompto closes his eyes. Somebody has to keep it together. He has done this before. He can do it again.


	5. Couperet

After everything has gone to hell, and before everything goes to hell again, they find themselves on a train to Tenebrae. The last weeks left cracks in his mind and soul, split him open where he had thought he was mended, in enough places to leave him so very fragile. So fragile that Gladio can shatter him just by the way, with a stroke of his hand and two words. “ _Leave_ him!”

Prompto barely hears it, but he _understands_. His nose and jaw are still throbbing from what was a throwaway gesture to Gladio, something he needed to do to get on with more important things, and what he understands is, _talk back and you will get hurt,_ what he understands is, _try me._ Gladio is tall and heavy and angry, and Prompto freezes so solidly that for a moment he forgets to breathe. When he remembers how, the air tastes like blood and failure. He should have followed Noct immediately, but the best he can do is slink away as soon as Gladio has turned his attention elsewhere.

What he expects is to find is Noct trying not to cry, or punching a wall. What he gets is Noct turning on him the moment he enters his line of sight. Prompto dodges, tries to talk him down, but it's no use. None of this makes sense, but makes the attempt, anyway, reviews his steps, urgently searching for the tripwire in Noct's perception he must have missed. Keeps searching still when Ardyn has already entered the picture, when it dawns on him that they are being tricked. Cannot stop himself from searching even while falling, right until he hits the ground and everything goes dark.

Much later, in the dim blue light of the lab, Prompto stares right at his own face, a dozen times over, and finds his answer, remembers the quiet words offered for doing exactly as he was told, fingers lightly tracing his wristbands.

_You're not a person. Poor thing. They never bothered to remove the price tag from their doll, did they?_

***

Looking back, Prompto has no recollection of when or how he was captured, but it's a moot point, anyway. Ardyn doesn’t offer this time, doesn’t try anything, he simply does as he pleases. Prompto holds still. The metal frame he is strapped to only relieves him of a choice, keeps him upright when his muscles give. He recognizes the beatings as torture. That one is easy. The breaks between them shake him harder, the tender touches, the encouragements. That one is difficult. Fifteen years, and he still lacks the words.

His body is a message, an open letter to Noctis in red and purple and yellow, and Prompto does everything he can to intercept it, to at least water down the ink. When Noct asks, he is okay. Of course he is, because this is too big, and nobody wants to hear this, and whoever cries first loses, and whether it is Noct or himself does not matter, because they have both lost so much already. It doesn't matter, because he knows who would win, and he is not going give him that, too.

***

Noct is gone.

Noct is gone, and Ignis is blind, and Prompto is in so much pain that for a glorious moment his fury supersedes his survival instinct. All he wants is to fight, to punish the person responsible for their misery, and if he gets his head ripped off for his trouble, _fine_. For the second it takes to summon his gun and pull the trigger it’s liberating, exhilarating. So much so that he forgets that it's not his place to assert himself, that willfulness is a punishable offense. So much so that when the bullet gets lost in smoke and miasma, despite  _inhumanly_ perfect aim never hits its mark, it completely shuts him down.

In the first quiet seconds after Ardyn is gone, Prompto feels nothing at all. Maybe it is better this way. It makes him the first to be able to move again, to touch Ignis' arm and stir him back into action, which in turn pulls Gladio from his stupor.

They have work to do.


End file.
